In 1937, it was 40 hours a week per household. Now it's 80 hours a week per household. The amount of work done by the average person has doubled for the same or less pay.
To be fair, if we look close, we see ecosystems within ecosystems, including a buttload of predation and two buttloads of parasitism. Parasites capitalizing on other lifeforms to utilize their energy and resources for their own growth and reproduction, as far as the eye can see.
And that's what human society is. It's much less prone to top-down parasitism in tiny societies (less than 500 members) but when we have communities of millions and states of tens of millions, it's pretty easy for religious ministries and ideological politicians to take over the system to make giant militaries that hammer other, less-captured societies.
Every once in a while some of us get the idea, what if we make a system that doesn't involve parasitism. I bet we can make everyone pretty happy. And this is true, except that the parasites really like having ridiculous amounts of wealth and power, and would rather render the entire species extinct than be confined to being a (well-to-do, comfortable) commoner.
This is why, even though there have been successful anarcho-communist organizations, they are often attacked by state law enforcement acting not in enforcing law, but in preserving political power.
No war but class war.
Death to monarchists.
Many humans saw it and said “ooh, look at that natural beauty!”
Some humans saw it and said “ooh, look at those resources I can profit from!”
Humans: What a bunch of absolute bastards
We started with an unlimited workweek (often 12+ hours a day all day) and reduced it to 40 hours with a weekend and a paid lunch. (Remember the movie 9 to 5 that was typical. Then it became 9-6 with unpaid lunch.)
Around the Reagan era, Osha got defunded so it didn't have time to deal with all the labor violations, which was part of the enshittification.
Who knew it would lead to a nazi uprising?
Turns out everyone did. The industrialist intellegentsia actually warned this would happen based on historical precedent, but the boomer generation was all fuck the future including their own kids. To be fair, prior generations hating later generatiobs was the norm by the time it was their turn.
I mean, the business plot aimed to overthrow America and make it a fascist state.
It took a few more decades, sure, but right now I'd say they actually got everything they wanted originally and then some.
Humans didn't invent this.
The rich did.
Yeah it's pretty but have you ever seen a Walmart parking lot 🤩🤩🤩
Only once religious bosses invented the mechanical clock. Before that we were taking winter off, and being fed meat at work (which was mostly done outside, in groups):
It's always bittersweet when explaining to someone what was stolen from us, when they are convinced that we now have it so much better than back then. Brainwashing is a hell of a drug.
Hard to believe but the 40hr week is an improvement
We can do better though.
I hope we do. I started working for myself and I've only got my tools on maybe 30hrs a week now, it's pretty great. Most days I can put in a solid 5 or 6 hours and be good. I want that for everyone.
Likely only compared to the industrialisation era:
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html
Humans saw this and made a limestone mine.
While scenery like this is nice for hiking, try making a living there.
There's probably fish, game, and foraging available. But, yeah, that's probably more surviving than living.
"In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." - K.M.
I hate that often Microsoft Teams is the only piece of software I can get to work for sharing a screen with the layman. Many cross-platform user-friendly options don’t work reliably on Linux, but by some weird twist of fate, I get it to work more often than anything else.
Yes, for an IT person’s own solution, you’d just use a VPN or something, but I’m rarely working with people that are technical enough for this.
Have you tried Jitsi? https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/
